


David to Alec

by Celandine



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Childhood, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 15:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15075656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: David's sister is running away the only way she knows how. Someday he will too.





	David to Alec

**Author's Note:**

  * For [just_ann_now](https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_ann_now/gifts).



A hand rattled the door knob.

“Let me in, David. I know you’re there,” came the low voice.

He flipped the lock and opened the door. His sister stumbled in.

“Thank you.”

The room they were in was tiny. It had once been used to store extra household linens, but now only a few ragged sheets and table cloths, haphazardly folded and yellowing, remained on the shelves that lined three walls. The boy, perhaps ten years of age, fingered the corner of one absently as he looked up at his sister. “Why do _you_ need to hide? Father doesn’t try to beat you when he’s in one of his rages, any more than Mother.”

The girl shivered. She was some five years his elder, on the brink of womanhood. “No, but... last time he was so drunk, he mistook me for one of the maids.”

She didn’t need to explain further; they both knew their father’s habits with maids.

“I’m going to accept Talbert’s offer,” she went on. “Anything to get away from here. I’m only sorry that you can’t come away with me.”

“Don’t do it.” The words tore from his mouth without volition.

“David, I know you don’t want me to go, but it will be no worse for you if I leave, and I simply cannot remain here and risk Father...” she trailed off. “Mother wishes Talbert were of higher rank, but she admits that with the little I have to bring, I’m not likely to get a better offer.”

Her brother shook his head. His objection had not been because he didn’t want his sister to leave, but he could never explain the moment of strange clarity in his brain, telling him that this marriage would not be happy. It would get his sister out of their parents’ house, to be sure, but she would do better to wait.

Such flashes of knowledge were not rare with him, and he hated them. He much preferred the whirling confusion that usually predominated. He found an odd comfort in the very predictability of its _un_ -predictability, so much like the rest of his life.

The patterns he saw in those clear moments, however, were always correct. If his sister married this way, she would come to regret it, he was certain of that, and so he repeated, “Don’t do it.”

She looked at him and sighed and shook her head, not arguing, but he knew she would not change her mind. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to get away. He would run off himself someday when had the chance, perhaps all the way to the City where his family would never find him. He would alter his appearance, change his name. He would no longer be David, beaten regularly by his father, mostly ignored by his mother. He would be Alec.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in 2010, but not posted until 2018.


End file.
